


Several Competent Wizards

by Adina



Category: Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Patricia Wrede, Kate and Cecelia - Caroline Stevermer & Patricia Wrede, Mairelon the Magician - Patricia Wrede
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-21
Updated: 2007-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim wasn't sure what the effects of the spell were supposed to be, but she was fairly certain the gentry cove in the center of the circle wasn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Several Competent Wizards

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Jae Gecko for the quick beta.
> 
> Written for Alex Elizabeth

 

 

Kim wasn't sure what the effects of the spell were supposed to be, but she was fairly certain the gentry cove in the center of the circle wasn't it. Summoning humans by magic was neither polite nor wise, and summoning things that merely looked human was rather worse. Mairelon would never give her a spell that cockle-brained to practice on, or at least he'd better not.

The startled looking cove was dressed more like something out of an opera than anything in real life, right down to the thin gold crown on his head. He didn't look like an actor, though, unless he was a really good one. He wore the velvet tunic and hose as they were everyday clothing, eyeing Mairelon's togs as if they were the strange ones.

"Where--" The man coughed. "I don't mean to be rude, but where am I?"

His English was definitely gentry, though the accent didn't sound quiet British. But it didn't sound like any of the colonies either. "Grosvenor Square," Mairelon said, his tone so bland it had to be hiding either fear or great confusion.

"London," Kim added when the man looked blank, though it didn't seem to help. "England?"

The man only shook his head, looking down at the circle around his feet. "Do you mind if I leave this...enclosure? I think I would like to sit down."

Mairelon was still looking bland, blander even than before if that were possible. "I don't know. _Can_ you leave the circle?"

The man raised one brow, lifting the gold circlet in the process. Frowning down at the floor he stepped over the line, without taking any hurt Kim could see. Mairelon waved him to one of the chairs by the fire--Kim's usual chair. Before Mairelon could get any noodle-noggined idea about sending her to safety, Kim took Mairelon's usual seat, leaving him to lean against the mantle. He looked more pleased than not, however, and she realized it gave him an excuse to remain standing while their...guest...was relatively immobilized in the chair. 

"I take it I'm a long way from home," the stranger said after a moment silently rubbing the bridge of his nose, coincidentally (or not) hiding his eyes.

A hint of sympathy entered Mairelon's voice. "If you don't recognize the name of England I fear you are very far from home indeed."

The stranger nodded.

"How can you speak English if you've never heard of England?" Kim demanded.

"English?" The man looked surprised. "To me you seem to be speaking my language."

Mairelon nodded as if he expected something of the sort. "General translation spell."

"English." The man rolled the word around in his mouth like tasting a wine of dubious vintage. "English. Where--Dobbilan!" He gave a mirthless laugh. "A giant once told me that the English had no imagination. I knew I'd heard the word before. Said all of them were named Jack."

"Not a bad assessment," Mairelon said dryly, "if a trifle incomplete."

Trust Mairelon to leave off the most interesting bit. "Excuse me," Kim said. "Giant?"

The stranger shrugged. "Not a bad sort, really. I convinced him to leave off pillaging and take up consulting. Well, Cimorene and I did. My wife," he added. "Before we were married."

This whole business was getting more muddled by the minute. The cove must be a nutter, though he sounded straight enough. Mairelon spoke before Kim could figure out how to ask where the stranger had met a giant, given that they didn't exist and all.

"It occurs to me that introductions are in order," he said, once again bland. "I am Richard Merrill. My wife and apprentice, Kim."

The cove stood up and bowed, proof that even a bedlamite could have manners. "Mendanbar, king of the Enchanted Forest."

Kim stared. Since becoming the ward and then wife of Mairelon she had met a Russian prince, but never a king--let alone the king of an imaginary place. Imaginary king of an imaginary land. Red Sal had told her stories, once upon a time....

"Ah." Mairelon put one foot up on the fender--Hunch was gonna skin him if he burned his boot sole again. "Very, very far, I'm afraid. Quite out of this universe, in fact."

The stranger--Mendanbar? What kind of name was that?--nodded, lips pursed in a grim sort of smile. "I feared as much. The door the wizards thrust me through was not intended for easy return."

Mairelon acted like it was normal to talk sensibly to a cove whose brain was curdled like three-week-old milk. Unless.... She kept her smile carefully hidden. Mairelon had said the original spell was a test for her, an exercise in building on an imperfect understanding of a spell. What if it was all a test, Mairelon's surprise and confusion just mummery? Unobtrusively sketching a certain diagram with her finger against her skirt, she breathed "Veritas" as quietly as she could. Mendanbar flinched as if she had shouted, but otherwise remained as he had been. His crown, if anything, shone a little brighter.

"Illusion banishment, madam?" he asked as soon as he had his face under control again. "You are then a witch?"

"Wizard is the preferred term," Mairelon said.

"I was unaware the Council of Wizards accepted women," Mendanbar said. "I have little cause to love wizards, and, as they say, some of my best friends are witches." It was an apology, directed to her, though it was Mairelon who had taken offense. Mendanbar nodded towards the now-abandoned circle. "Besides, that doesn't have the look of wizard's magic, at least not as I understand the term."

"I see." If Mairelon understood any of this he saw more than Kim did.

Mendanbar was still frowning at the circle. "What in the name of creation were you trying to accomplish there? The constraints are...decidedly unorthodox."

"Really?" Mairelon asked. "How so? Can you see--"

Kim coughed before he could hare off on a technical tangent. "I think the real question is how you wound up in our workroom, Mr.--Your Majesty." Bedlamite he might be, but if he felt her charm he was a wizard too, and it never paid to be rude to a frogmaker.

"I was wondering that myself." Mendanbar stood up and Mairelon tensed, but he only started pacing. "I was fighting most of the Council of Wizards. They had me surrounded, but rather than kill me they opened a door and pushed me through." He stopped pacing and turned towards them. "I assume they didn't want a new king interfering with their plans, so they put me in storage." He looked around the room. "Or at least that's what they intended."

"Hmm." Mairelon looked enlightened, or at least more enlightened than Kim felt. "Our spell was supposed to open a window to see into another space without allowing anything to come through. The two spells must have intersected in some way."

"Why were you fighting wizards?" Kim asked before Mairelon could get lost in the details again.

Mendanbar ran his fingers through his hair, only to find them entangled in the circlet. He removed it, turning it in his hands, before hanging it on the back of the chair and sitting down. "It's a long story. It starts with the dragons, I suppose." He frowned. "Or no, I suppose it really starts with magic, wizards' magic--or rather everyone else's magic."

Kim leaned back in her chair: Mendanbar was a worse storyteller than Mairelon.

"Wizards--" Mendanbar looked sideways at Mairelon and her. "--wizards in my world at least, don't have magic of their own. Instead they use staffs that absorb--steal--magic from those who do. Dragons and the Enchanted Forest are the two biggest sources, so they tried to start a war between us so they could steal from both sides. Cimorene and Kazul and I prevented that, so they tried a more direct attack."

Cimorene was his wife. "Who's Kazul?" she asked.

"The king of the dragons," Mendanbar said absently. He looked at Mairelon, oblivious to Kim goggling at him. "Not this universe you say."

Mairelon shook his head. "I've heard of the Enchanted Forest, and it's certainly not in this universe."

"It's real?" Kim blurted out, momentarily forgetting Lady Wendall's gentle but relentless lessons in proper behavior, not to mention Mother Tibb's warning against annoying frogmakers.

"Obviously," Mairelon said with a wave towards Mendanbar. His hand dropped. "For a given definition of real. It's not a place you can get to by simple travel."

"How do I get back, then?" Mendanbar asked.

"That--" Mairelon glanced at the clock on the mantle behind him. "That is an issue best discussed over dinner."

The footman was unperturbed at the order to add another place setting to the table, and didn't bat an eye at their oddly-dressed guest. Hunch had had a major say in selecting and training the servants when Mairelon bought the house, and it showed. "Very good, sir. Mademoiselle D'Auber is waiting in the small drawing room. She arrived while sir and madam were in the workroom and desired to wait." One of Hunch's first instructions had been that they were never to be interrupted while in the workroom.

"Renee? What's she doing here?" Mairelon asked, not that the footman was likely to know.

"Two more settings, James," Kim said.

"Very good, madam."

Kim led the way to the small drawing room, where they found Renee bent over a small table, engrossed in what appeared to be a spell diagram. Her easy greeting, "Ah, Kim, R--" was cut off when she saw Mendanbar with them. She stood and curtsied. "Madame Merrill, Monsieur--"

A momentary silence fell until Kim realized she was supposed to introduce them. Her lessons had never included a king! "Mademoiselle D'Auber, may I present his majesty, King Mendanbar of the Enchanted Forest? Your majesty, our friend and fellow wizard, Mademoiselle Renee D'Auber." It sounded right, and if it wasn't, neither Renee nor Mendanbar was the sort to fault her for it.

Mendanbar gave a little bow. "I'm pleased to meet you, Miss D'Auber."

Renee's eyes widened. "Mais vous ete Francais!"

Laughing, Mairelon shook his head. "General translation spell, I think, Renee, nothing more. To us he's speaking English."

"It is a great pity," Renee said with a flirtatious smile. "Still I may enjoy the illusion of a handsome gentleman who speaks with the very accent of Bordeaux."

Mendanbar looked alarmed at this speech. "My wife, Cimorene--" he sputtered, clearly having no idea how to end such a sentence.

Renee laughed, but gently. "I am, as the English say, entirely bark without the bite, monsieur."

"Sorry," Mendanbar mumbled. Kim could imagine how a king would fare on the marriage mart: like a joint of beef thrown to a pack of starving dogs. It was the first suggestion that he really was king of more than his own cracked fancies.

"You will stay for dinner, Renee, won't you?" she asked, partly to let Mendanbar off the hook but mostly to see what Renee would make of him.

"You can tell us what you've found," Mairelon added, pointing to Renee's spell diagram with his chin.

"I think first I must ask you how his majesty came to be your guest," Renee said, dimpling at him. "Otherwise you will forget to tell me and I shall die of the curiosity."

"First," Kim put in before Mairelon could open his mouth, "we go in to dinner before the soup gets cold."

Mairelon smirked and even Renee smiled. "Madame Merrill does not approve of missing meals," she explained to Mendanbar.

Kim scowled, though in truth the raillery was old enough to hold no sting, not that it ever had from her husband or Renee. "I can abstain from nourishment when the cause is sufficient," she said with her most careful accent. "But I ain't noodle-pated enough to eat cold soup when I ain't gotta," she added in broadest cant.

"A very sensible attitude," Mendanbar said without a hint of a smile. "Cimorene was Kazul's cook before we met, and she complains vigorously when guests are late or won't stop talking long enough to sit down and eat. Says there's nothing a cook hates worse."

"Exactly." Kim took his arm and led him out of the room, letting Mairelon and Renee follow behind. There was something odd about his reaction, she thought. He hadn't seemed to notice her change in accent at all, and it wasn't the careful 'not noticing' that some toffs did when she made mistakes or deliberately dropped the gentry-speak. General translation spell, Mairelon called it--had Mendanbar heard any difference at all? It would explain why he called Renee Miss rather than Mademoiselle, come to think on it.

Renee waited until the soup had been served before asking again about Mendanbar's appearance. Kim let Mairelon tell the story, listening carefully for any accidental or deliberate omissions. He told it straight, leaving out only the precaution with the chairs, and that didn't count. Explanations lasted through the soup and well into the fish course.

Mairelon and Renee were discussing some intricacy of the spell Kim had cast, with Mairelon assuring one and all that Kim had made no mistake, when the door opened. Instead of the butler with the next course, however, it was James again, with Shoreham and another toff in tow.

"The Earl of Shoreham, Mr. Theodore Daventer," James announced.

Mairelon turned in his seat. "Shoreham. What are you doing here?"

Shoreham looked from Mendanbar to Renee with a certain amount of uneasiness. "I have a small matter to discuss with you and Mrs. Merrill."

Kim shook her head. At this rate they'd fill the ballroom by pudding. "James--"

"Another two plates, madam?" Hunch didn't hire any stupid servants for their household.

Mr. Daventer, who was really only a boy, looked stricken. "Oh, please don't trouble yourself, Mrs. Merrill! We've just eaten."

That was a lie if she'd ever heard one, but she couldn't help smiling at the boy. He was so nice, trustworthy as so few people were. "It'll be no trouble, really." A couple of the servants might have to eat their dinner at the pub, but an extra coin or two from Hunch for a pint of ale would still any discontent. "Please, join us."

Daventer opened his mouth to protest, but Mairelon cut him off. "It's either eat with us or sit and watch us eat, and the latter gives me indigestion."

Shoreham sat down, forcing Daventer to do the same or be rude. James, who had been hovering behind them with fresh plates, set places before them both.

The butler brought in the next course, suitably augmented for the extra mouths, and Mairelon introduced Renee and Mendanbar while the butler served it. The latter he named as 'Mendanbar, King of Lesvolshebnia.'

Daventer gave a sort of seated bow, while Shoreham looked suspiciously at Mairelon. "I'm pleased to meet your majesty," Daventer said, "though--" He gave an apologetic and self-deprecating smile. "I was a terrible geography student. I have to say I have no idea where Lesvolshebnia is."

"It's a small country," Mairelon said before Mendanbar could open his mouth. "Eastern Europe, near Greece."

"Very small," Mendanbar said with the twitch of his mouth to suggest he found Mairelon's antics amusing. "Many people can't find it even when they're looking for it. Or maybe especially then." As he spoke he was making a curious gesture with his left hand half under the table, almost like nudging off a curious cat. Kim wouldn't have seen it at all if he hadn't been sitting next to her.

"What did you want to ask Kim and me about?" Mairelon asked Shoreham as soon as the servants left.

Shoreham gave a glance at Renee and Mendanbar that wasn't nearly as covert as he thought it was. "Nothing important, just a detail of a spell." Ministry work, in other words. Kim could understand excluding Mendanbar, a stranger, but Renee had long since proven herself, surely? Renee caught Kim's gaze and rolled her eyes. The ridiculousness of it, Shoreham with his secret, Mairelon with his own, hit Kim and she had to hide grin behind her napkin.

"It is then that we are to speak of the trivialities," Renee said, laughter bubbling just under the surface. "You have perhaps seen a play, Monsieur Daventer?"

Daventer glanced at Shoreham before speaking. "I've been traveling on the continent, I'm afraid, Mademoiselle D'Auber. I have seen nothing recent."

Daventer and his travels had something to do with Shoreham's problem, that was clear, not that Shoreham would have brought him along if he hadn't been involved since he was too young to be even an apprentice in the Royal College. Kim would have been happy to meet the young man even without his involvement with Shoreham--he was so obviously destined for great things and she would be privileged to see his rise from the very beginning, perhaps even to aid his cause!

That last thought gave Kim pause. She was no gentry mort to take up some toff's cause. Maybe she'd done Shoreham a turn or six, but she was paid for that and it was mostly things that needed doing anyway. Obviously she would help Daventer in any way she could, but--

"Oh, I see," she said, interrupting Shoreham in the middle of saying something about the opera. "Mr. Daventer has a spell on him. Makes him--" She hesitated, not quite sure of the right word. "--likeable," she finished lamely.

"An annoyingly persistent one," Mendanbar said, repeating the cat-shooing motion. Cocking his head, he studied Daventer for a moment. "You did not cast this spell on yourself, I think?"

Daventer shook his head.

Shoreham gave a glance at Renee and then seemed to give up on the whole secrecy thing. "They got the worst off him before he left Italy, but the remnant is proving intractable."

Renee looked interested and a little amused. "What is it that this spell is meant to accomplish?"

Shoreham waited while the joint was served, remaining silent until the last servant left the room. Even then he didn't speak immediately. Mairelon made a coaxing gesture and Shoreham grimaced.

Mendanbar had stopped shooing away...whatever he had been shooing...when the butler had arrived with the food. Now he reached out with his left hand and grabbed...something...twining it thrice around his hand and pulling like an ostler struggling with a balky horse. Daventer gave what might be called a yip in a youth less dignified, and Mendanbar snapped back in his chair. "Tenacious stuff," he said to Shoreham before looking down at his still-empty hands. He cast his nothing in a loop around Daventer and suddenly the boy was only an ordinary and rather dull English schoolboy.

Shoreham straightened up. "You can see and affect the spell!"

"Of course. I _am_ the--" Mendanbar started with perhaps a hint of exasperation before stopping with a rueful smile. "It's the gift of--of my family, to see and manipulate magic directly." He frowned at Daventer, or at the spell around him that only Mendanbar could see. "The magic is layered, and--" His frown deepened. "--sticky, I suppose you could say. I don't have enough power without the Forest to remove it."

"Forest?" Daventer brightened. "There's the Regent's hunting park--"

Kim only hid a groan at his idiocy by taking a large and unladylike bite of roast. Her stupid admiration of him was definitely broken.

"Not that forest," Mairelon said with more patience than she could have mustered.

"You're still the only one who has had much success against the thing," Shoreham said. He seemed to have forgotten his earlier hesitation. "The spell--a series of smaller spells--was supposed to make him emperor of all Europe." His voice had become very dry on the last four words. "It might have succeeded if one of the conspirators hadn't altered the last spell, intending to gain more direct power by using the emperor as human sacrifice."

Kim shuddered. She'd seen death and murder enough on the streets, but like cannibalism human sacrifice was worse, treating people like they weren't even human. The toffs and gentry treated the poor like another species at times, but they didn't slaughter them like animals. Well, not directly, anyway.

Daventer spoke into the awkward silence. "My uncle decided---without my knowledge!--to make me the new British Napoleon. I think he saw himself as the power behind the throne, moving a puppet on sticks." Kim wondered how much of that was true, whether Daventer had really been that ignorant of the scheme. It failed, obviously, and someone had sent Daventer to Shoreham, at which point even a conspirator in it up to his neck might find it politic to play innocent pawn.

"Two of Wellington's former officers tracked the plot down." Shoreham gave a snort of laughter. "On their wedding trips, no less, with their brides at their sides." He looked at Mairelon. "You know Lord Sheffield, I think? And James Tarlington?"

"Slightly. My mother is tight with Lady Sheffield, however," Mairelon said. "The dowager, that is."

"I too know the dowager," Renee added. "She and my mama were close friends and I have taken care to keep up the acquaintance." She gave Shoreham a hard look. "My mama and my papa, they had no love for the sans-culottes, and less for the small man from Corsica. You need not fear that I shall take any word of this spell to those who would view it as more than a curiosity."

Shoreham gave her a nod that was almost an apology before turning to Mendanbar. "Are you guesting with the Merrills, ah, your majesty?" Mendanbar glanced at Mairelon, who nodded. "Then can I ask you--you four--to look into this matter for me?"

"Of course," Mairelon said as Renee and Mendanbar nodded.

"Might attract fewer gabsters if Mr. Daventer kipped here as well," Kim added. "Less running back and forth." Besides, that way Mendanbar could keep up his blocking of the spell.

Shoreham might have been considering that benefit as well, because he positively beamed at her. "An excellent idea, Mrs. Merrill. I shall leave him in your capable hands."

***

Mendanbar woke up in a strange place, momentarily disoriented until he remembered the pleasant room the lady of the house had shown him to--more pleasant, in fact, than his room at the castle. Cimorene had done what she could in the last fourteen months towards removing the ugliest furniture and most grotesque carvings from the castle, but there were limits to what even she could do against the accumulated bad taste of twenty generations of the kings (and queens) of the Enchanted Forest.

Cimorene. She was alive, because surely he would know if she weren't, but he could only hope he had eliminated enough of the wizards before they got him. Had she recovered the sword? If the wizards had the sword--if Cimorene had been hurt--the baby--

When he realized he was hyperventilating Mendanbar stood up and moved to the large window that dominated one wall, forcing the worries he couldn't affect temporarily to the back of his mind. From the light it was earlier than he thought, barely past dawn. They had talked until late last night, endlessly to little purpose as far as Mendanbar could determine. Lord Shoreham and Mr. Merrill were as impenetrable as Telemain when they got going, and Miss D'Auber was not far behind. Mrs. Merrill shared some of the same good sense as Cimorene, thank fortune. She called a halt to the evening when her husband and Lord Shoreham seemed likely to come to blows, sending for Miss D'Auber's and Lord Shoreham's carriages and arranging rooms for Mr. Daventer and himself. He had been ready to fall over from exhaustion by the time he had reached the room Mrs. Merrill had assigned him.

The window looked out onto a paved street, mostly empty at such an early hour, only a few small carts making deliveries to break the peace. He must be in some sort of town--fairly large from the paving and the houses visible across the street. Cimorene had more experience with towns than he had, since the Enchanted Forest had none. Dragons didn't have them either, but Linderwell had one or two quite large towns. They had visited her parents once after the wedding and he'd been stunned by the noise and crowds of several hundred families living so close together. This looked like it was at least that size.

Mendanbar shook his head. It still didn't feel as early as it looked; in fact his stomach was saying it was well past time for breakfast. Leaving the window, he dressed in some clothes that had appeared on a chair overnight and went in search of food.

A housemaid cleaning the carpet in the hall outside his room looked at him in surprise but directed him to the breakfast room, which was empty of both people and breakfast. Before he could do more than look around in dismay, another maid appeared with a pot of tea in one hand and a dainty pitcher of milk in the other.

"Beg pardon, sir," she said, dipping a curtsy after putting them down on a side-table. "Cook weren't expecting any of the quality up so early. She says toast and an egg would be fastest, but she can make you a chop if'n you care to wait."

"An egg's fine," Mendanbar assured her. "Bacon if she has it and it's not too much trouble."

Bacon was on hand, it seemed, though the maid gave him something of a strange look at the request. The food was brought and consumed and Mendanbar was contemplating a second pot of tea (if he could figure out how to summon the maid, since speaking his request aloud didn't work like it did at the castle) when the lady of the house appeared. She looked surprised to see him, and not entirely awake.

"Your majesty," she said, dipping a curtsy before lifting the lid of the empty teapot to peer inside.

He stood and bowed. "Mrs. Merrill." Before he could apologize for the empty pot the maid appeared with a new one, along with a butler and a series of footmen to fill the warming trays on a buffet.

Mrs. Merrill filled a plate and then poured herself a cup of tea, holding the pot suggestively over Mendanbar's cup and filling it when he nodded. "You're up early," she said, nodding towards his empty plate.

"I'm not sure time flows quite the same here as it does at home," he said, suddenly worried. "To me it feels like late morning or even early afternoon." Visitors to strange lands had returned home more than once to discover that hundreds of years had passed. The very thought made him feel ill.

"More likely you're just further--" She looked into the air, moving her fingers as if she were casting a spell, though he could see she wasn't. "--further west--I think it's west--than you're used to. Mairelon said once that traveling east or west by magic had that effect."

That made an astonishing amount of sense. "You relieve my mind immeasurably, Mrs. Merrill."

She shrugged, though she might also have been blushing slightly. "Just Kim is fine, really." Her flush deepened. "Your majesty."

"Mendanbar will do," he replied, eager to avoid being majestied to death, though if it got him home he'd gladly put up with Willin at his stuffiest.

Something of his thought must have shown. "We'll get you home somehow," she said, laying her hand over his own. "Mairelon's a right knowing one, and if he can't figure it out, Kerring or Shoreham can help."

She sounded sincere and he wanted to believe her, but there was still the question of how he had wound up in their world. They said it was an accident, but they were wizards after all, and the wizards of his world had meant him no good forcing him through their door. Before he could think of something to say Mr. Daventer appeared at the door, which was probably just as well, since he wasn't sure there was anything he could say.

The strand of magic he'd looped around the boy to contain that peculiar spell was fraying, letting through tendrils like the first tentative forays of magic briars just before they engulfed a castle. Ignoring Mr. Daventer's words, some long-winded version of 'good morning,' he studied the mess. Outside the Forest and without the sword--had Cimorene managed to steal it back?--he had no magic to use but the spell itself, and that was blocked from access by his own loop.

With a twitch of his hand he called the loop to himself, smoothing the worst of the frayed spots before casting a loop around Mrs. Merrill. Kim, he reminded himself. Almost immediately Mr. Daventer seemed more likeable, even before the new, thicker tendrils reached him. It was such a pity that a promising youth like Mr. Daventer couldn't do more to right the wrongs of the world--which was pure, spell-induced baloney. Grabbing the two strongest strands he ripped them loose.

"Ow!"

The exclamation was loud enough to penetrate his concentration. He looked up at Mr. Daventer's somewhat petulant stare. "Sorry," he said without a great deal of sincerity. Looking back to the strands, he twisted them together and cast them as a new loop around Mr. Daventer. "Without the--without my usual power sources I have to pull the magic from the spell itself." He removed the loop from Kim, re-spinning it into a smooth and strong, if thin, strand before weaving it into the other two strands. 

He looked up and shrugged at Mr. Daventer's puzzled expression. "I have no magic of my own in this--here." Mr. Merrill had been careful not to tell Lord Shoreham or this boy his origins, and it seemed best to keep that private at least until he found out why.

Kim looked fascinated. "You can see magic all the time, can't you?" At his nod she continued, "And you can manipulate magic even though you can't make it yourself."

That stung--it was a little too close to how wizards worked. "I don't steal magic. At home I am the guardian of the forest's magic, for the good of the forest and those who live in it. I interfered with Mr. Daventer's spell because it was interfering with me. And with you!"

Kim held up a hand. "I wasn't implying--" She shook her head, turning her hand until the palm was up, fingers curved as if holding a small ball. "Let there be light." Power surged in her, only to be throttled to a trickle before it emerged into the spell, producing a cool, clear light. "Can you do anything with this?'

Wizards in this world were definitely not the same ilk as the Council of Wizards. The power behind the spell was hers, all her own, without staff or ambient magic. After a moment to contemplate it in place, he called it to him. The ball was solid, disinclined to unravel, so he didn't try, instead pressing it tighter until he held a glowing marble the size of his thumbnail. Rolling it across the table to Kim he asked, "Is this what you had in mind?"

She gave it a hard look, but passed it on to Daventer when he asked. The boy nearly dropped it. "It's real!" he blurted. "My tutor said it was impossible to make things with magic."

"Not impossible," Kim said, taking the marble back. "Just very, very difficult. You can turn one thing into another easily enough, but to make something out of nothing is major spell-casting." The look she gave him was equal parts surprise and calculation.

Mendanbar shrugged, not quite sure he liked her expression. "It's not really 'real,' as Mr. Daventer put it. The spell will fade in a few days and the marble will crumble, evaporate."

"Ah." Kim relaxed, leaning back in her chair and trading marble for fork. "That's different."

"What's different?" Mr. Merrill said from the doorway before crossing the room to his wife's side. Her mouth full, Kim indicated the glowing marble with her chin. Mr. Merrill rested one hand on her shoulder as he leaned over to pick it up with the other. The two of them were comfortable with each other in ways that made Mendanbar's heart ache with missing Cimorene.

"Mendanbar made it out of my light spell," Kim said once her mouth was clear.

"Ah." Mr. Merrill gave Mendanbar the same appraising look Kim had. "Temporary, I assume?"

"Day or two," Mendanbar confirmed with a shrug.

"Ah," Mr. Merrill repeated. He glanced at Mr. Daventer's now-empty plate. "Might I trouble you to show his majesty to Burlington Arcade, Mr. Daventer?" He looked back at Mendanbar. "I thought you might wish to acquire clothing more...suitable to the London scene. You may put your purchases on my accounts until we arrange to transfer your funds."

Mendanbar had no funds, as Mr. Merrill full knew. On the other hand, managing Mr. Daventer's spell must be worth something, and it wasn't as if Mendanbar wouldn't do the same thing for a stranger stranded in his own world. It still felt funny to worry about money or the lack thereof, though. "That...would be helpful."

***

Shopping with Mr. Daventer was a chore. He was as fussy about the cut of a jacket or the drape of fabric as Willin at his worst, and without his own knowledge of English fashion Mendanbar had no way of reining him in. At last they had assembled what Mr. Daventer swore was the bare minimum of clothing for a gentleman, ordering it delivered to the Merrill house.

"You should get a man, a valet, while you're in Town," Daventer said as they turned into what Mendanbar was fairly certain was the Merrills' street. It wasn't the first time he had made the suggestion, so Mendanbar ignored him in favor of keeping a wary eye on the traffic in the streets. Flying carpets, seven-league boots, mouse-drawn pumpkins--none moved with the speed and reckless disregard for life and limb of London carriages. 

One particularly precarious looking vehicle was careening in their direction with half a dozen young men hanging off it, laughing and hollering like drunken giants. Mendanbar stepped back, even knowing that the carriages never left the pavement, and thus could only watch in shock as three of the young men grabbed Daventer and pulled him into the carriage. The driver cracked the whip and the carriage sped off.

Stupid! They had all been stupid not to realize that Daventer's spell-begotten abilities might attract unwelcome attention. Though how unwelcome that attention was to Daventer was another question. Were the rowdies kidnapping him? Or rescuing?

"Ain't hurt, are you, majesty?" He turned his eyes from gazing uselessly after the vanished carriage to find a tall but permanently slouched man standing next to him. "If you ain't, we should get you off the street," the stranger continued.

"I'm fine," Mendanbar assured him, wondering who the man was and whether he should trust him.

"This way, then." The man set off at just short of a trot and Mendanbar stretched his legs to follow. "Master Richard--that's Mr. Merrill to you--he set me to keep an eye on you two, and right unhappy he'll be to hear o' this."

The house he was leading Mendanbar to looked like the right house, but all the houses--hundreds of houses!--all looked the same, identical houses on identical streets that stretched for miles, with thousands of carriages whizzing in all directions and millions of people--

He was clutching at a spindly tree, one of many such planted between pathway and pavement. It wasn't one of his trees, of course, but it was comforting none the less, with a pale green spark deep within, faint echo of the Enchanted Forest's raging power.

"Not what you're used to, majesty?" The strange man had come back for him. "Took me that way when I first got to London."

Before Mendanbar could respond another carriage pulled up. Mendanbar stepped back, but this one only stopped decorously while Miss D'Auber climbed out.

"Your majesty." She bobbed a curtsey in his direction, which he returned with a bow. She raised a brow at the stranger. "Hunch?"

"Morning, Miss D'Auber," he said. "Master Richard told me off to watch his majesty and young Mr. Daventer and a right loblolly I'll look if a crowd of town bloods didn't snatch him before my very eyes!"

"Ah." It was an eloquent ah. "Perhaps we should discuss this in a place less public?"

Miss D'Auber got them inside in short order, summoning Kim and Merrill. Hunch explained what had happened, with only occasional amplification from Mendanbar. Mr. Merrill looked grim while Kim only shook her head ruefully.

"Shoreham's going to have to do something about security at the ministry," Kim said. "Place leaks secrets like a drunken informer."

"Indeed." Merrill didn't lose his grim look. "Did either of you see the men who took Daventer?"

Hunch shook his head. Mendanbar shrugged. "I saw them, but--" He shrugged again.

"--but fat lot of good it'll do unless you see them again," Hunch finished for him. Mendanbar nodded.

"An illusion!" Kim burst out. "If I cast an illusion spell, can you shape it like you did the light this morning?"

Illusion was hardly the stock in trade of the kings of the Enchanted Forest, but he had played with it when he was younger. "I think so." If he could show them the faces they might recognize them.

"Great!" Kim clapped her hands together and then held them flat in front of her, palms up. Miss D'Auber touched her wrist before the power started to build.

"I believe this is my specialty, my dear Mrs. Kim," she said with gentle amusement. "Illusion you can do, but you are too truthful for it to be your strong place."

Kim laughed but dropped her hands. "Truthful? Me?"

"Ever, my dear," Miss D'Auber answered solemnly, though her eyes were dancing. She raised her hands as Kim had done. "A flash of light, night--"

Magic surged up a raging torrent, only to be throttled to a trickle before being released. Mist formed above her hands, solidifying only slightly into an indistinct human form. It wasn't much to work with, but Mendanbar did the best he could, molding the carriage driver's face onto it.

Merrill frowned at it, looking at it from one angle and then another. "He looks vaguely familiar. Can you make it any clearer?"

"Not without more power in the spell," Mendanbar said with a questioning look at Miss D'Auber.

She nodded. "Might I have the use of your workroom, Mrs. Kim, Mr. Merrill? For I cannot create a stronger illusion without some preparation."

"Of course," Kim said with a smile.

Merrill frowned, but not at the request. "If you plan to use rosewater I'll have to check our supply. I believe we may be low."

"I had thought to use anise oil if you have it," Miss D'Auber said. 

"Anise oil?" Merrill shook his head, looking appalled. "Fennel seed is at least as effective and far simpler. The seeds give potential--"

"You need not quote Miss Zelenka's work at me," Miss D'Auber said with some acerbity. "I too have a subscription to the Journal of Magical Science."

"Then you know that symbolic logic--"

They sounded remarkably like Morwen and Telemain bickering, with as little animosity and as much affection. Kim shook her head occasionally as she watched them but showed no inclination to rein them in.

"Wouldn't it be easier," Mendanbar inserted into the next brief pause in the argument, "just to remove your...ligature? To allow more power into the spell?"

Like Telemain, Merrill was easily side-tracked. "Ligature?" He looked to Miss D'Auber for an answer but she shrugged, looking back at Mendanbar.

He'd assumed she was doing it deliberately. Of course she still might be and just didn't understand what he meant. "The power rises--" He raised both hands shoulder width apart. "--and then narrows to a trickle?" He brought his hands together, almost touching, and gave Miss D'Auber a hopeful look. She shook her head, exchanged glances with Merrill, and shook her head again. "Kim's spell this morning did the same thing."

"I--Oh!" Light dawned across Kim's face. "He's talking about saying the spell in English," she said. She looked at Miss D'Auber. "Or French, rather."

"I am?" English and French, those were languages, right? What-- Merrill and Miss D'Auber were looking appalled. His own face must have shown his confusion.

"We say spells in a foreign language to keep the power from spilling into the spell out of control," Kim explained. "Results can be unpredictable if you say it in your native tongue."

He'd never heard Morwen, Cimorene, or even Telemain use another language. Nonsense words, yes, but not another language. Wizards, witches, sorcerers, magicians, giants, and even dragons all used everyday language. "I don't think we do that."

She nodded, giving Merrill a quick look and then turning back to Mendanbar. Merrill's mouth was open to protest, but before he could say anything, she said, "Catch!" and "Let there be light!"

The power surged and washed out in a great wave. Gathering it in, he compressed it into a ball again, one the size of his fist instead of the morning's marble.

"I think I should say the spell," Kim said, ignoring Merrill's thunderous expression. "It won't have quite as much power, but you two can pull me out if something goes wrong."

Miss D'Auber likewise ignored Merrill. "The hallway, I am thinking, may not be the most appropriate place for the experiment." There was an edge of laughter in her voice. "The workroom, Mrs. Kim?"

"The workroom and a warding spell," Merrill said with no more than a slight frown at Kim and Miss D'Auber.

The workroom turned out to be the place where he had appeared, a windowless, slate-floored room, furnished only with two armchairs by a small fireplace, and with cabinets lining one wall. After a moment's discussion he and Kim stood in the middle of the room while Merrill cast the ward around them. It was a tightly-woven, well-constructed net that met over their heads and under their feet. Was the spell more dangerous than he thought, or was Merrill just overly cautious? He imagined Cimorene participating in an unusual spell with a virtual stranger and found he could not fault Merrill's concern.

Either Kim wasn't worried or she hid it better. "Ready?" she asked. Mendanbar nodded and she began. 

The power she released was immensely greater than Miss D'Auber's spell. Kim looked slightly wild-eyed before he drew the power off and began shaping it. There was enough there to form the carriage, driver, and the young men hanging off it full-sized, though the size of the room forced him to scale it down slightly. When he had the last figure done he looked over at the other. If they couldn't recognize the kidnappers the whole exercise was pointless.

But no. Merrill was sitting on the arm of one of the chairs, staring at the illusion with an appalled expression, though he looked as if he might laugh if given only slightly more provocation. Miss D'Auber had her hand to her mouth, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

"Oh," Kim breathed from beside him. "Not them." 

Mendanbar turned to face her. 

"Druids," she explained.

***

Of course it was them, Kim thought, who else would pull such a tom-fool stunt as kidnapping a toff in the middle of Grosvenor Square? They must have been seen and recognized by a dozen people, and if they weren't on dit for a month it would only be because some greater scandal captured the gossips' attention. Not that most toffs wouldn't believe Daventer to be a willing participant, but even as mere example of reckless driving it was spectacular enough.

"Druids?" Mendanbar repeated, obviously confused by their reactions.

"Imbeciles, more like," Mairelon muttered. "Young fools."

Those young fools were at least four years her senior, most of them, but she'd never been half that young. She sketched in their encounter with Jon Aberford three years ago, leaving out the multitudinous copies of the Saltash Platter and why they were looking for the wicher cheat in the first place. Aberford's forays into housebreaking and highway robbery were included, however, as were his theatrics.

"He sounds very...earnest," Mendanbar said at last. Mairelon only snorted.

"Yet he does not act without cause," Renee said, "even if his reasons are not what one might find reasonable."

"Method in his madness?" Mairelon contributed. Renee nodded.

Aberford had been sincere, even when prosing on like a bedlamite. "He's a romantic," Kim said, working it out in her own mind. "He wouldn't snatch Daventer; he'd rescue him or something."

"Or protect someone or something from him?" Mendanbar suggested.

"No," Kim said without knowing why she was so certain. "He'd call him out instead." At Mendanbar's blank look, "Challenge him to a duel."

"Ah." Mendanbar nodded, looking off into the distance.

"How then do we find the so-dramatic Mr. Aberford?" Renee asked.

Mairelon grinned. "Very easily."

***

Sneaking through the woods was significantly harder in skirts than in boy's clothing, not to mention being rough on the fabric. Wilson was going to give her a Look when she saw this, Kim thought as she yanked her dress free from yet another thorn. "You really think Aberford is noodle-pated enough to bring Daventer _here_?" she asked Mairelon again. "He knows we know about the place."

Mairelon gave one of his more annoyingly confident smiles. "Oh, but to Aberford this isn't just any little boys' hideout in the woods, it's the Sacred Lodge--" Somehow Mairelon had picked up Aberford's trick of pronouncing capital letters. "--and thus the best and even safest place to bring Daventer."

"In other words," Mendanbar added, "You do think he's--noodle-pated?--enough." He didn't sound entirely confident of Mairelon's assessment. "Yet--there is something here, some power in these woods."

Renee and Mairelon exchanged glances. "There was the ward on the lodge that queered Laverham's spell," Kim reminded them. "Aberford managed that."

"The caster need not be Monsieur Aberford," Renee said, carefully holding her skirts from a thorn brake. Her gown showed not a snag; she moved through the underbrush with an easy grace that would have been intolerable in anyone but Renee. "Me, I think Monsieur Aberford does not work alone."

"Aberford couldn't--" Mairelon broke off. "The lodge," he said more quietly, pointing ahead with his chin. Kim drew even with him and crouched at his side. The lighted windows of the lodge were just barely visible through the trees. She could see no sign of motion outside.

They continued on in silence, eyes wide and ears open, but encountered neither guard nor casual loiterer. When they were some hundred feet from the lodge Mairelon gestured them to cover behind some bushes and then slipped around to the rear of the building. He was back in a few moments, walking quietly but openly.

"Only two horses in the stable," he reported. "No carriage. Unlikely to be much of a crowd inside."

Unlikely didn't mean it ain't so, as Mother Tibbs used to beat into her, but it was as good as they were going to get. Kim nodded and slipped across the yard to the lighted window. Renee joined them and together they peered in to find Daventer arguing with none other than Jon Aberford. The words were impossible to make out, but the tone was clear: neither toff was happy with the other. None of Aberford's fellow loblollies were the sort to miss a good show, so Mairelon was probably right that only the two were there.

Mairelon tapped her on the shoulder and gestured towards the door. She nodded. "--Sacred King must be bound to the land to avert disaster!" Aberford was shouting as Mairelon opened the door. "All my sources say--"

"I don't care what your moldy old books say," Daventer interrupted. Neither man seemed to have noticed the intruders. "I am not your confounded 'sacred king' and I'm not--"

"But you are!" Irritation had overcome reverence in Aberford's voice, though traces of it remained. "The signs and portents--"

"You can take your signs and portents--"

Mairelon cleared his throat and when that failed to get their attention let the door swing close with a bang. Both men jumped and turned to stare at him. He smiled. "Mr. Aberford, Mr. Daventer." He might have been encountering them on a walk in Hyde Park.

"Finally!" Daventer snapped. "This--this _madman_ wants to sacrifice me to his heathen gods! And he expects me to go along with it!"

Aberford sputtered. "I never--The Sacred King--only if the crops fail--"

"I see," Mairelon said, and maybe he did but it was still a muddle to Kim. From the look on Mendanbar's face he was equally confused, though Renee just looked amused.

Aberford drew himself up to his full height. "The Sacred King must be bound to the Land lest disaster fall upon us all!" He took a breath. "Without a king--"

One corner of Mairelon's mouth quirked up. "I might point out that we already have a king."

"Even if he's more of a nutter than you are," Kim said under her breath.

Aberford waved that away. "A mere temporal ruler. The Sacred King--"

"I'm not going to let you cut out my heart with a sickle!" Daventer shouted.

Kim rolled her eyes. This wasn't getting them any further than it had before. A faint noise outside caught her attention. Trying to block out Aberford bleating behind her she moved towards the door. From the jingle of harness and stamping of hooves there was definitely a horse outside, possibly a carriage. Shaking her head she reached for the lock. Until they had Aberford straightened out they didn't need more of his lunatics complicating the mess.

Before she could engage the lock the door burst open, knocking her to the floor. The man who had just broken the door open charged in, tripped over her legs, and crashed to the floor.

***

The woods around the lodge were the most comfortable place Mendanbar had yet found in England. The power inhabiting it was weak, mere scant, pale ribbons compared to the Forest, but he could call on it if he had to. If this Jon Aberford had created this, or even just recognized it, he might not be the fool the others thought him. His first sight of Aberford confirmed the man's talent, untrained, ill-trained as it was, though unfortunately it failed to absolve him of being a fool. Still, with none to teach him what he felt but half-baked theories and ancient lies it was a wonder he'd accomplished as much as he had.

He was considering how best to break into the argument to find out why Daventer thought Aberford wanted to kill him and whether Aberford actually did when the door crashed open.

From the momentum and position of the man who tripped over Kim, he had tried to batter the door open without checking to see whether it was locked. Any urge to laugh vanished at the sight of the men who stepped in after him. The object in the leader's hand was almost certainly a weapon from the way he held it, and the cudgels in his men's hands left no doubt. "Nobody move!" the leader shouted.

Merrill ignored the order and continued to Kim's side. "Oh, hello, Bramingham," he said as he passed in front of the leader. "Your footman appears to have tripped over my wife."

Aberford likewise ignored the order. "How dare you invade the Sacred Lodge of the Sons of the New Dawn, Henry Bramingham!" he declaimed. "Those who bring profane weapons onto this holy ground face a terrible vengeance!"

With Merrill's help Kim had untangled herself from the footman and was now sitting up. "Just so we're clear, are you talking about another spell or something more--" She waved her hand vaguely.

"Mystic?" Merrill suggested. Kim nodded.

Before Aberford could answer, the man Merrill called Bramingham spoke. "I came to rescue you, Mr. Daventer," he said, gesturing with the weapon at Aberford.

Daventer looked at Aberford, moving a few steps further away. "Er--thanks. But I think we--" He waved unhelpfully at the crowd of people who were not Aberford.

"So I see." Looking more than faintly embarrassed Bramingham put his weapon away. "I suppose all I can do is offer the hospitality of Bramingham Hall to those who wish it. It's a little late to be returning to London."

"No!" Aberford cried. "You can't leave. If the Sacred King is not bound to the Land there will be untold disasters! Fire. Famine. Pestilence. Disease!"

Miss D'Auber frowned. "Are pestilence and disease not the same thing?"

Aberford was not altogether wrong, Mendanbar realized. The threads from the spell on Daventer were twining around the ribbons of magic he'd felt earlier. If Daventer left he would pull the magic with him, creating an even greater mess. "I fear by bringing him here Mr. Aberford has made it difficult for Mr. Daventer to leave again," he said.

Bramingham's eyes narrowed as he looked at Aberford. "Difficult _how_?"

"Not by his actions," Mendanbar hastened to explain. Bramingham seemed very protective of Daventer, possibly an effect of the spell on Daventer. "At least not directly." Explaining what he saw even to Cimorene was difficult, to these strangers it was nearly impossible. "This place is a little like my home, there is magic not attached to anything, just drifting. Without a center, a focus, the magic just drifts off, dissipates."

"What does that have to do with me?" Daventer demanded.

"The spell on you attracts the magic," Mendanbar said. "If you leave it will follow."

Daventer shrugged as if that didn't concern him, earning himself a look of withering scorn from Kim. "No wizard's going to want you anywhere around if you're trailing bits of random magic," she said.

"So, what? I stay here and rusticate the rest of my life?" Daventer asked.

"If the Sacred King is bound to the Land harmony and balance will be preserved," Aberford started. "All you have to do--"

Daventer shouted him down. "I'm not going to let you--"

Mendanbar let the familiar argument wash over him while watching the magic. As the tendrils of the royal spell twined with the ambient magic they loosened their hold on Daventer. He tried to remove one of the threads, only to see the entire structure tighten around Daventer again. If one of the wizards 'attacked' the spell to constrict it, he might be able to isolate it long enough to get Daventer out of the woods, literally as well as figuratively.

Releasing the thread, he watched the spell expand again, wider if anything. Curious, he nudged more of its threads towards the ribbons of ambient magic, loosening it still further until it looked like Daventer could walk straight out of it. When Daventer moved, however, anchor threads were pulled taut and the structure collapsed tight again. Once the spell loosened again Mendanbar turned his attention to the anchoring threads.

"Oh!" Mendanbar's exclamation penetrated the brangle Aberford, Daventer, and the others were engaged in. They all turned to look at him.

"Oh?" Merrill asked.

Mendanbar felt like laughing. "With the assistance of Mr. Aberford and his circle I believe we can solve all our problems. Mr. Aberford gets his Sacred King and Mr. Daventer returns to normal life." Daventer and Aberford wore identical expressions of gape-mouthed disbelief. "I can't unravel the royal spell, but if we work together we can transfer it to another."

"To whom?" Kim asked, giving Aberford a dubious look. "You can't be thinking of making this--making Mr. Aberford king!"

"Me!" Aberford looked horrified. "I'm not--"

"You are the Guardian of the woods," Mendanbar said. "Not king." Aberford looked relieved. Bramingham opened his mouth and then apparently thought better of it. "No, I thought we could transfer it to your tree." He started creating the spell in his head, trying to figure out the best wording. "What do you use, an oak? Rowan? Something else?" The trees were the same species here as at home, that helped.

"Er--" Aberford looked blank, embarrassed. "Tree?"

"The center of your grove," Mendanbar explained. Aberford still looked blank. "Where do you perform your rituals, then?"

"The hilltop to the west of here," Kim answered for him. "No trees on it." Aberford gave her a sour look.

Stumbling around in the dark finding a suitable tree was not how he wanted to spend what remained of the night. "If you can gather your circle here at sunset tomorrow that would be best," Mendanbar told Aberford. "We can find a good place before then."

Aberford drew himself up proudly. "Every true Son of the New Dawn will be here even if the hounds of hell stand in his way!" Kim rolled her eyes.

"May I offer you the hospitality of Bramingham Hall until then?" Bramingham asked. "No hounds of hell, I'm afraid, but maybe the stable dog can fill in if you need a challenge."

Merrill's expression was very bland. "I would hate to inconvenience Lady Bramingham."

"My mother is in London at the moment," Bramingham said. "No inconvenience at all."

Looking slightly happier, Merrill exchanged glances with Kim, who inclined her head towards Daventer. "Thank you," he said. "But I think Mendanbar and I had best stay here with Mr. Daventer. Your hospitality for the ladies would be most appreciated, however." 

***

"What language are we supposed to say this thing in anyway?" asked one of the young men who was milling about near the lodge.

Mendanbar resisted the urge to roll his eyes, though he could certainly understand Kim's frequent impulses to do so. "English, if that's your native language."

"It doesn't sound very impressive, I must say," another young man spoke up.

"It doesn't have to sound impressive," a third said. "It just has to work. Doesn't seem right to do magic in English, though."

"But what about the, um, light-skirts?" yet another asked. "Did someone remember to bring--"

Mendanbar walked away before he strangled the lot of them. Let Aberford worry about getting them into position. He headed for Merrill, Kim, and Aberford, clustered under the large oak they had selected as the new host of the royal spell.

"Everything ready?" Merrill asked.

Mendanbar nodded. "As soon as Mr. Daventer gets here."

"Renee and Mr. Bramingham went to get him," Kim said.

"Are you sure this spell of yours will work?" Aberford asked abruptly. "It seems rather simplistic for an endeavor of this magnitude," he complained.

Merrill snorted. "You'd prefer chanting the Iliad?"

Mendanbar cut Aberford off before he could retort. "This is magic of the noble dragons, taught to me by mighty Kazul, king of all dragon-kind," he pronounced, hoping that would impress Aberford and shut him up.

"Not to inject a sordid commercial note," Merrill said before Aberford could raise another objection. "But you do own this land, don't you?"

Aberford drew himself up. "I am its Guardian."

"Morally, yes, yes," Merrill agreed. "But I meant more legally. I would hate to have anyone look at that--" He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the soon to be royal tree. "--and see only a thousand board-feet of prime lumber."

Mendanbar shuddered, remembering the last 'poor but virtuous woodcutter' who wandered into the Enchanted Forest. You could still hear the ghost of his screams when the wind blew from the east.

"This land has been an inalienable part of the Aberford estate since before the Conquest," Aberford said.

Kim looked at Merrill. "In--?"

"Inalienable," he said. "Can't be sold."

The trees were safe then, and so were those who might have tried to cut them down.

"The Sacred King approaches!" Aberford announced. The look Daventer gave him was eloquent of disgust.

"Is everything ready then?" Bramingham asked, his hand resting on Daventer's shoulder, the gesture more proprietary than comforting if Mendanbar was any judge.

"All ready," Mendanbar said. The sooner they got this over with the better. "Mr. Daventer, if you would take your place? Put both hands on the trunk of the tree."

Daventer complied, but nothing without glaring at Aberford. "Last time I did something like this someone tried to stick a sickle in my back."

"The sacrifice is purely symbolic," Aberford said, affronted.

"She seemed pretty serious!" Daventer retorted, taking his hands off the tree as he turned towards Aberford.

"Hands," Kim reminded him. Reluctantly he turned back.

"Mr. Aberford, if you could get your circle ready?" Mendanbar said before they could continue the argument.

After a few minutes of utter chaos they were arranged, the Sons of the New Dawn in a circle around the tree, the Merrills and the others in a semi-circle inside that, and Mendanbar opposite the semi-circle. The druids started chanting in slightly ragged unison:

"Power of water, wind, and earth Turn the spell back to its birth. King and Forest, now entwined, Join together, forever bind."

They repeated the verse more smoothly the second time and continued in a steady drone. Dragon magic didn't normally use a chorus, but they were used to chanting, and more importantly it was working. The threads of the royal spell were loosening, tangling with the forest's magic. Mendanbar nudged them further afield until he felt the structure trembling on the verge of collapse. Holding up five fingers, he started counting them down to warn the wizards.

Before he could get to two, Bramingham broke from the semi-circle, grabbing Daventer from behind and wrenching him away from the tree. Drawing a knife he held it to Daventer's throat. "I'm not going to let you waste this power on a tree," he hissed. "Give it to me or I'll slit his throat and take it that way!"

There wasn't time to argue. The druids' chorus was growing ragged as its members realized what was happening; the over-stretched structure of the spell was shuddering. If it collapsed before it could be transferred it would be permanently bound to Daventer, if nothing worse. Mendanbar waved his hand emphatically at the wizards and then counted down the two remaining fingers.

"Power of water, wind, and earth, Turn the spell back to its birth. Sacred kingship now revoke, With the power invest this oak," they chanted in better unison than the druids had managed.

Bramingham shouted when the power struck him, his face alight with glee. His grip on Daventer loosened and Daventer wrenched himself free, shoving Bramingham back against the tree. Bramingham laughed and was still laughing in the same wild exultation when the bark of the tree closed over his wrists. Daventer stumbled backwards, tripped, and scuttled away on the ground as fast as he could without taking his eyes off the tree. The tree continued closing over its captive, but Bramingham kept laughing. The laughter only died when the bark covered his face.

"That--was unexpected," Merrill said slowly, horror not far submerged in his voice.

"But why--" Miss D'Auber started before falling silent.

" _How_ did you hear of Mr. Daventer's spell?" Mendanbar demanded when Aberford stumbled forward.

Aberford dragged his gaze off the tree. "Signs and portents--"

"Rumors and gossip," another young man said from behind him, almost cheerfully.

"Would any of these rumors have come from Henry Bramingham, by chance?" Kim asked, her eyes still on the tree.

The young man nodded, and then realized she couldn't see him. "Uh, probably."

"If Mr. Bramingham wanted the power, how better than to manipulate the so useful Mr. Aberford into bringing Mr. Daventer here," Miss D'Auber said.

"With the bonus of rescuing him to gain his trust," Kim said.

Mendanbar helped Daventer to his feet, turning him away from the tree by force. "You're free of the royal spell," he assured him. From the look on his face it would be far longer before he was free of nightmares.

***

Epilogue

Three months wasn't long enough to get used to London traffic and London streets, Mendanbar thought as he looked out the carriage windows, but unless he wanted to surrender any chance of getting home he was stuck in the city, forced to remain close to the Royal College of Wizards. The wizards, especially Merrill and Lord Kerring, were researching ways to send him home, though so far they had had no success. Meanwhile he was using the talents of the kings of the Enchanted Forest to assist them in other research. He had his own rooms at the College in return.

"'Ere you are, Mr. Mendanbar," Hunch said through the driver's hatch as they pulled up in front of the Merrills' townhouse. "Master Richard said you was to go right up to the workroom."

"Thank you, Hunch." 

A footman had the front door open when Mendanbar got there, taking his coat and sending him upstairs. Mendanbar was familiar with the house, even if he wasn't staying there any more, but the Merrills usually greeted him in the drawing room even if they nearly always wound up in the workroom anyway.

"Ah, Hunch made good time, I see," Merrill said as Mendanbar entered. "Good. Kim's casting this one in English and we thought you'd best be here." Mendanbar nodded; the wizards of the Royal College were experimenting with casting spells in English, with mixed results. Kim was one of the best at it, but one of the services he provided the Royal College was controlling spells that got out of hand. "Ready?" Merrill asked Kim.

Instead of answering she stood and moved to a circle already inscribed on the floor.

"Far away and near at hand," she started. "Peer into a distant land--"

Mendanbar tuned out the worlds to watch the spell build. It was strong, stronger than anything Kim had tried before, strong enough that if shattered she might get hurt before he could protect her. A mist was forming inside the circle and he realized he didn't even know what the spell was intended to do. Normally Merrill was much more careful about that.

The mist was thinning, revealing a tall, black-haired woman, heavily pregnant. Mendanbar gaped. "Cimorene!"

Merrill blocked his lunge forward with an arm. "Don't break the circle. It's just an image, she's not really here."

"Mendanbar?" Cimorene took a step forward but stayed centered in the unmoving circle. "Is that really you?"

"It's me," he assured her, tearing his eyes off her only long enough to give Merrill and Kim a grateful smile. Cimorene. She was beautiful. Healthy. Alive.

"Where are you?" she demanded, looking ready to storm out the circle and grab him.

"In another universe, apparently," he said. "Among new friends," he added as her face lost color. "You. Are you all right? And the baby?"

"We're fine," she said, laying a hand on her belly. "I'm with Kazul. We got the sword but we can't get back into the castle."

"Mendanbar," Merrill said softly, urgently. Mendanbar looked away from Cimorene to see Kim sweating and trembling with the strain of maintaining the spell.

"Cimorene--" Mendanbar started to apologize, but Cimorene had already spotted Kim.

"Go," she said. "Cut the spell," she told Kim. "And thank you!"

"In a week," Merrill said. Mendanbar realized they meant to try the spell again.

"I'll be ready," Cimorene assured him. "Go!"

Cimorene's image vanished with a crack and Merrill caught Kim as she collapsed. His own legs turning to jelly, Mendanbar sat on the floor where he'd stood. Cimorene was all right. No matter how many months it took to get home, at least he could talk to her. At least she was all right. He looked over to Kim, who was sitting up now in Merrill's arms.

"Thank you."

 


End file.
